Children’s annual reading program starts this week

By Jon LloydStaff Writer

Friday

Jan 16, 2015 at 4:47 AMJan 17, 2015 at 1:40 AM

On Wednesday morning at Ericson Public Library (EPL), children will get the chance to hear Boone City Administrator Luke Nelson read aloud the children’s picture book, "Don’t Push the Button!" by Bill Cotter.

Nelson’s reading during the library’s weekly Story Time beginning at 10 a.m. starts the second year of the children’s reading program, Bridge to Reading, that will be held in many libraries across the state from now through April.

Begun by a (Dubuque) Carnegie-Stout librarian, Bridge to Reading is for children ages infant to 5 years old. It’s free and no registration is required. As EPL Children’s Librarian Zach Stier, who is overseeing the weekly Bridge to Reading program, said, "They can just show up."

Last year, a total of about 200 children and their parents showed up for Bridge to Reading during the weekly Story Time, which is usually well attended by about 30 children, according to library Director Jamie Williams.

"I invited a lot of the community leaders," Williams said, referring to the adult readers for the program. "It’s important for children and their families to see different members and leaders of our community and see that they also stress the importance of literacy."

The program’s mission is to promote early literacy and reading through quality picture books, said Stier, who is known to Story Time kids as Mr. Z and who will be performing the dancing and singing that accompanies the spoken readings. A member of the Bridge to Reading board, Stier said they began with about 100 books for this year’s program and narrowed it down to 10. All of them were published in 2014, he said.

"(The children) have to read at least five books out of 10," Stier said. "Then kids get to vote on their favorite one. The voting process is online through the Carnegie-Stout Library."

Bridge to Reading was founded by Danielle Day, Youth Services Director at the Carnegie-Stout Library in Dubuque, in 2013. According to the program’s vision, votes will reflect the quality and characteristics of a good "read aloud" and also be cast by a committee of librarians, teachers and childcare providers. The winning author and illustrator will be given a plaque from the Committee Awards Chair at the Dubuque library.

Besides "Don’t Push the Button!" other books that will be read at EPL include "Windblown," "Digger Dog," and "Bedtime at the Nut House," by Eric Litwin, the New York Times bestselling author of the first of the four popular "Pete the Cat" picture books. Litwin won the 2014 Bridge to Reading Award.

"That is a unique concept that some kids don’t know, which is voting," Stier said. "So it’s an introductory concept. What’s powerful is their decision and choice. It’s a state-wide choice so they can maybe see that their choice won the award."

Stier said parents can use the library’s computers to cast their child’s vote, and he might also print paper ballots. Last year, as part of the library’s community outreach program, Bridge to Reading was introduced at two preschools, Small Miracles at First United Methodist Church and Sacred Heart School, and will be continued this year, Stier said.

Early literacy, according to Stier, encompasses six specific skill sets, including print motivation, phonological awareness, and narrative development, which consists of retelling stories and understanding their construction.

Williams said an example of narrative development is when someone reads to a child and asks, "‘What do you think will happen next?’ It’s just kind of getting them to think about what’s going on in the story."

"Narrative development is a skill that I place heavy emphasis on because it impacts a child’s creativity and imagination because they can also create a story themselves," Stier added. "It’s very important to know that early literacy isn’t the ability to know how to read, it’s the skills to get them ready to read."

"They may not understand what’s being read to them," he added, "but they’re being exposed to literature, which is important."

The early literacy methods used in the Bridge to Reading program employ dialogic reading, Stier said, which is a concept based on the work of Grover Whitehurst, Ph.D., director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution. In dialogic reading, an adult helps a child become the teller of the story by becoming the listener, the questioner and the audience for the child

"Dialogic reading, as the name implies, creates a dialogue between the reader and the child," Stier said. "Evaluating their response given and expanding the response by maybe re-phrasing it and repeating the prompt as well…(it’s) how the adult helps the child become the teller of the story."